§ 9. FINANCIAL POLICY OF THE AVIGNON POPES. 95
The yearly income of tlie papal treasury under Clement V. and John XXII. has been estimated at from 200,000 to 250,000 gold florins. 1 In 1353 it is known to have been at least 260,000 florins, or more than $600,000 of our money.
These sources of income were not always sufficient for the expenses of the papal household, and in cases had to be anticipated by loans. The popes borrowed from cardinals, from princes, and from bankers. Urban V. got a loan from his cardinals of 30,000 gold florins. Gregory XI. got loans of 30,000 florins from the king of Navarre, and 60,000 from the duke of Anjou. The duke seems to have been a ready lender, and on another occasion loaned Gregory 40,000 florins. ^ It was a common thing for bishops and abbots to make loans to enable them to pay the expense of their confirmation. The abbot of St. Albans, in 1290, was assessed 1300 pounds for his servitium, and borrowed 500 of it.^ The habit grew until the time of the Reformation, when the sums borrowed, as in the case of Albrecht, archbishop of Mainz, were enormous.
The transactions of the Avignon chancellory called forth loud complaints, even from contemporary apologists for the papacy. Alvarus Pelagius, in his Lament over the ChureJi, wrote : " No poor man can approach the pope. He will call and no one will answer, because he has no money in his purse to pay. Scarcely is a single petition heeded by the pope until it has passed through the hands of middlemen, a corrupt set, bought with bribes, and the officials conspire together to extort more than the rule calls for." In another place he said that whenever he entered into the papal chambers he always found the tables full of gold, and clerics counting
1 Ehrle : Process iiber d. N'achlass Klemens V. , in Archiv, etc., V. 147. The revenue of Philip the Fair amounted in 1301 to 267,900 pounds. See Gottlob, Servitien, 133. Gottlob, p. 134, says the cardinals received as much more as their share.
2 Haller, p. 138.
3 Walter de Gray, bishop of Worcester, is said to have borrowed 10,000 pounds at his elevation, 121-5. Roger de Wendover, as quoted by Gottlob, p. 136. The passage runs ohligatus in curia Romana de decern millihus libris, etc. Gottlob understands this to refer to Roman bankers, not to the Roman curia.
96 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
and weighing florins.^ Of the Spanish bishops he said that there was scarcely one in a hundred who did not receive money for ordinations and the gift of benefices. Matters grew no better, but rather worse as the fourteenth century advanced. Dietrich of Nieheim, speaking of Boniface IX., said that " the pope was an insatiable gulf, and that as for avarice there was no one to compare with him."^ To effect a cure of the disease, which was a scandal to Christendom, the popes would have been obliged to cut off the great army of officials who surrounded them. But this vast organized body was stronger than the Roman pontiff. The fundamental theory of the rights of the papal office was at fault. The councils made attempts to introduce reforms, but in vain. Help came at last and from an unexpected quarter, when Luther and the other leaders openly revolted against the mediieval theory of the papacy and of the Church.
§ 10. The Later Avignon Popes.
The bustling and scholastic John XXII. was followed l^y the scholarly and upright Benedict XIL, 1334-1.342._ Born in^the diocese of Toulouse, Benedict studied in Paris, and arose to the dignity of bishop and cardinal Infurc his elevation to the papal throne. If Villani is to be trusted, his election was an accident. One cardinal after another who voted for him did so, not dreaming he would be elected. The choice proved to be an excellent one. The new pontiff at once sliowed interest in reform. The prelates who had no distinct duties at Avignon he sent home, and to his credit it was recorded that, when urged to enrich his relatives, he replied that the vicar of Christ, like Melcliizedek, must be without father or mother or genealogy. To him belongs the honor of having begun_the erection of the^permanent papal .pa.hiQe at Avignon, a massive and grim structure, having the features
^ De planctu ercl. II. 7, qnxtm s(vpe intraverim in cameram camerarii domni papce, semper ihi vidi nnmmularios et mensas plenas aiiro, et clericos computantes et trntinantes florenos. See Dullinger-Friedrich, pp. 86, 420.
2 In/fntiabilis vorago et in avaricia nullus ei similis. De schismate, Erler's ed., p. 119. The sacra auri fames prevailed at Avignon.